Add new field or change the structure on all Firestore documents

Question

Consider a collection of users. Each document in the collection has name and email as fields.

{
  \"users\": {
    \"uid1\         


        

Answer 1

I wrote some routines to help automate this process back when I posted the question. I did not post them since these are a bit rudimentary and I was hoping for an elegant Firestore-based solution. Because such solution is not still available, here are the functions I wrote.

In short, we have functions for renaming a field, adding a field, or deleting a field. To rename a field, different functions are used depending on the data type. Maybe someone could generalise this better? The functions below are:

• add_field: Adds a field in all documents of a collection.
• delete_field: Deletes a field in all documents of a collection.
• rename_*_field: Renames a field containing a certain data type (*) in all documents of a collection. Here I include examples for String, Integer, and Date.

Add field:

public void add_field (final String key, final Object value, final String collection_ref) {
    FirebaseFirestore.getInstance().collection(collection_ref).get()
            .addOnCompleteListener(new OnCompleteListener() {
                @Override
                public void onComplete(@NonNull Task task) {
                    if (task.isSuccessful()) {
                        WriteBatch batch = db.batch();

                        for (DocumentSnapshot document : task.getResult()) {
                            DocumentReference docRef = document.getReference();
                            Map new_map = new HashMap<>();
                            new_map.put(key, value);
                            batch.update(docRef, new_map);
                        }
                        batch.commit();
                    } else {
                        // ... "Error adding field -> " + task.getException()
                    }
                }
            })
            .addOnFailureListener(new OnFailureListener() {
                @Override
                public void onFailure(@NonNull Exception e) {
                    // ... "Failure getting documents -> " + e
                }
            });
}

Delete field:

public void delete_field (final String key, final String collection_ref) {
    FirebaseFirestore.getInstance().collection(collection_ref).get()
            .addOnCompleteListener(new OnCompleteListener() {
                @Override
                public void onComplete(@NonNull Task task) {
                    if (task.isSuccessful()) {

                        WriteBatch batch = db.batch();

                        for (DocumentSnapshot document : task.getResult()) {
                            DocumentReference docRef = document.getReference();
                            Map delete_field = new HashMap<>();
                            delete_field.put(key, FieldValue.delete());
                            batch.update(docRef, delete_field);
                        }
                        // Commit the batch
                        batch.commit().addOnCompleteListener(new OnCompleteListener() {
                            @Override
                            public void onComplete(@NonNull Task task) {
                                // ...
                            }
                        });

                    } else {
                        // ... "Error updating field -> " + task.getException()
                    }
                }
            })
            .addOnFailureListener(new OnFailureListener() {
                @Override
                public void onFailure(@NonNull Exception e) {
                    // ... "Failure getting notices -> " + e
                }
            });
}

Rename field:

public void rename_string_field (final String old_key, final String new_key, final String collection_ref) {
    FirebaseFirestore.getInstance().collection(collection_ref).get()
            .addOnCompleteListener(new OnCompleteListener() {
                @Override
                public void onComplete(@NonNull Task task) {
                    if (task.isSuccessful()) {

                        WriteBatch batch = db.batch();

                        for (DocumentSnapshot document : task.getResult()) {
                            DocumentReference docRef = document.getReference();
                            String old_value = document.getString(old_key);

                            if (old_value != null) {
                                Map new_map = new HashMap<>();
                                new_map.put(new_key, old_value);

                                Map delete_old = new HashMap<>();
                                delete_old.put(old_key, FieldValue.delete());

                                batch.update(docRef, new_map);
                                batch.update(docRef, delete_old);
                            }
                        }
                        // Commit the batch
                        batch.commit().addOnCompleteListener(new OnCompleteListener() {
                            @Override
                            public void onComplete(@NonNull Task task) {
                                // ...
                            }
                        });

                    } else {
                        // ... "Error updating field -> " + task.getException()
                    }
                }
            })
            .addOnFailureListener(new OnFailureListener() {
                @Override
                public void onFailure(@NonNull Exception e) {
                    // ... "Failure getting notices ->" + e
                }
            });
}

public void rename_integer_field (final String old_key, final String new_key, final String collection_ref) {
    FirebaseFirestore.getInstance().collection(collection_ref).get()
            .addOnCompleteListener(new OnCompleteListener() {
                @Override
                public void onComplete(@NonNull Task task) {
                    if (task.isSuccessful()) {

                        WriteBatch batch = db.batch();

                        for (DocumentSnapshot document : task.getResult()) {
                            DocumentReference docRef = document.getReference();
                            int old_value = document.getDouble(old_key).intValue();
                            Integer ov = old_value;
                            if (ov != null) {
                                Map new_map = new HashMap<>();
                                new_map.put(new_key, old_value);

                                Map delete_old = new HashMap<>();
                                delete_old.put(old_key, FieldValue.delete());

                                batch.update(docRef, new_map);
                                batch.update(docRef, delete_old);
                            }
                        }
                        // Commit the batch
                        batch.commit().addOnCompleteListener(new OnCompleteListener() {
                            @Override
                            public void onComplete(@NonNull Task task) {
                                // ...
                            }
                        });

                    } else {
                        // ... "Error updating field -> " + task.getException()
                    }
                }
            })
            .addOnFailureListener(new OnFailureListener() {
                @Override
                public void onFailure(@NonNull Exception e) {
                    // ... "Failure getting notices -> " + e
                }
            });
}

public void rename_date_field (final String old_key, final String new_key, final String collection_ref) {
    FirebaseFirestore.getInstance().collection(collection_ref).get()
            .addOnCompleteListener(new OnCompleteListener() {
                @Override
                public void onComplete(@NonNull Task task) {
                    if (task.isSuccessful()) {

                        WriteBatch batch = db.batch();

                        for (DocumentSnapshot document : task.getResult()) {
                            DocumentReference docRef = document.getReference();
                            Date old_value = document.getDate(old_key);
                            if (old_value != null) {
                                Map new_map = new HashMap<>();
                                new_map.put(new_key, old_value);

                                Map delete_old = new HashMap<>();
                                delete_old.put(old_key, FieldValue.delete());

                                batch.update(docRef, new_map);
                                batch.update(docRef, delete_old);
                            }
                        }
                        // Commit the batch
                        batch.commit().addOnCompleteListener(new OnCompleteListener() {
                            @Override
                            public void onComplete(@NonNull Task task) {
                                // ...
                            }
                        });

                    } else {
                        // ... "Error updating field -> " + task.getException()
                    }
                }
            })
            .addOnFailureListener(new OnFailureListener() {
                @Override
                public void onFailure(@NonNull Exception e) {
                    // ... "Failure getting notices -> " + e
                }
            });
}